Broken Kingdoms
by StarMaker674
Summary: A short series on why the ending of season 8 is actually terrible for everyone in the long run
1. Chapter 1

The Broken kingdoms

The war of ice and fire saw the ascension of Brandon Stark as ruler of the seven kingdoms in an unprecedented election by the remaining high lords of westeros , however he soon made his first blunder by immediately granting the North independence at minimal urging from his sister. Though the lords at the council made no issue of it at the time, this already set a precedence that would doom Westeros as a unified continent.

In the meantime however the new king had to deal with issues in the ruined and burnt king's landing , chiefly among those were the septons denouncing their new king as an abomination of dark magic and began stirring trouble. At first gathered little following but as some of the more extreme began to drop dead in mysterious circumstances; people began to be afraid of their new king.

Not helping this was the sheer ineptitude of the new Master of Coin, sir Bronn of the Blackwater who now had the title of lord paramount of the Reach. Why the new king had chosen a common sellsword with no experience in finances and economics to this position baffles historians to this day. The Master of Coin's heavy handed attempts at gaining credit only added to the disgruntlement of the smallfolk against their king and drove many into the arms of the reborn sparrow movement

It should be noted that this was not the only questionable choices King Bran made for his small council like allowing Samwell Tarly to be Grandmaester despite never officially becoming a maester (A fact that drove the order of maesters to oppose his reign ) and making Brienne of Tarth the lord commander of the Kingsguard ; though the lady was certainly most qualified in martial skills , most surviving knights and lords refused to join the kingsguard on account of having to serve under a woman.

The first year of Bran Stark's reign hadn't ended before he faced new problems , Dorne under Quentyn Martell and The Iron Islands under Yara Greyjoy declared their independence from the Iron Throne.


	2. Chapter 2

The Iron Islands and Drone were two kingdoms of Westeros notorious for their rebellious nature and in the case of Dorne had done so when the rulers of westeros had massive fire breathing lizards. Even after centuries of union with the continent there were still many who chaffed at being ruled from a city a thousand miles away.

Brandon Stark's apparent weakness in granting the north independence only served to fuel their ambitions of autonomy. At any rate, both kingdoms were in good shape to press the issue. Dorne still had half its forces intact and since they harbored no territorial ambitions simply announced their independence and retreated to their deserts where they were supreme over any forces the iron throne could throw at them.

The Iron islands still had a good portion of its fleet intact and with much of its naval rivals decimated they were supreme . Yara Greyjoy reportedly found her authority and competence as lady of the isles questioned on account of being a woman and her support of the Dragon Queen earning nothing for the Iron Islands. To combat this she began a campaign of pillaging and raiding on the undefended shores of the Westerlands and the Reach .

The King was very apathetic to this new disturbances being more concerned with finding the last dragon of Danyeres. This left things in the hands of his small council which quickly proved grossly impotent. Tyrion Lannister and ser Bronn attempted to rally the Westerlands and the Reach banners but failed completely.

Tyrion "the imp" lannister was not very respected in the westerlands before the war of five kings and any respect or authority he did command came from fear of his father , Tywin lannister. Now, having turned his cloak to the targaryens then the starks and considered a slayer of kin and king , his summons went unanswered as many lords took this as an opportunity to restart their own petty kingdoms after the lannisters had exhausted all their manpower, or were simply to devastated by ironborn raids to be of any use.

Sir Bronn also suffered a similar lack of respect for none of the Reach houses would accept an upjumped Sellsword as Lord of Highgarden when many of them had a direct claim to the castle. Bronn responded to it the way a sellsword would : gathering whatever forces were available to him in the Crownlands and marching to discipline his unruly vassals.

He and his force were promptly ambushed and massacred after stepping foot in the Reach, having his limbs hacked off before being buried alive. Afterwards the Reach descended into its own civil war , as none could agree on who had the better claim to kingship of the Reach with house Tyrell and Tarly being destroyed (the Tarly women having been raped and killed in an attack on the undermanned Horn hill for their house's collaboration with the lannister regime).

The Rivelands also did not answer the summons, Lord Edmure not appreciating his rebuff at the council and being concerned with rebuilding his shattered kingdoms to care what happens to the rest of Westeros

And so the Hand of the King was forced to send a letter requesting assistance from the North hoping that queen Sansa would come to her brother's aid. He would be sorely disappointed for the Wolf Queen had to deal with her own rebellious lords


	3. Chapter 3

The North had finally regained its independence after three centuries under the rule of the now destroyed Iron Throne, at first this was cause for celebration as most of the lords who survived the white walker onslaught attended the coronation of Sansa Stark.

Even then however they were doubts about Ned Stark's eldest daughter's ability to rule ; the reign of Queen Ceresi and the short lived one of the Dragon Queen had left people even more doubtful of women's ability to lead. Adding to this was the fact some lords , most prominent among them Robbett Glover and Meera Reed (who became the new lady of Greywater Watch ) did not attend her coronation.

To make matters worse , Bear Island , completely stripped of fighting men and women to aid in the war was taken by an Ironborn assault, its people masscared and pillaged mercliselly. This was a blow to the Stark regime's image made worse by the fact House Stark did not have the naval capacity to retake the island and building a fleet capable of matching the Ironborn's own would take years.

Had the North not been independent , perhaps it might have been able to call upon the rest of kingdoms for aid. Alas it was forced to stand on its own and many began to criticize the queen's decision of breaking off from the seven kingdoms so abruptly. Some even noted that it was actually a nonsensical decision as they pointed out that this meant the North had lost any influence it could have had in the South now that a Stark ruled the Six Kingdoms , and that they lost any say in deciding who becomes king in the capital.

Their arguments began to ring true as Spring came and the winter stores ran out. Most of the North fertile land was ravaged by the White Walker and with a huge chunk of the population that could have farmed the remaining land dead, the North simply couldn't grow enough food to sustain itself . This led to famine , disease and other calamities that made everyone from lord to beggar dissatisfied with Stark rule.

The Queen's attempts at remedying the situations proved futile and when she tried to take a loan from the Iron Bank her emissaries were rebuffed as the banking institution refused to have anymore dealings with any Westerosi kingdom until the original debts were paid in full.

Civil War quickly ensued with the North being carved up by several warlords, some even claiming to be the returned Jon Snow as a way of granting themselves legitimacy. The "War of the Snows" had at least seven men claiming to be the absentee Jon, even though the last any have seen of lyanna's son was him leaving with a band of wildlings to Beyond the Wall.

House Stark in the meantime could no nothing but watch as the North it fought so tenaciously for disintegrated , none but the vassals in the lands immediately surrounding winterfell answered them. It would survive in the coming centuries but as one of many petty kingdoms claiming who each claimed dominion over the rest.

* * *

Of Arya Stark, there is nothing after she decided to attempt to find land west of Westeros from some brazen unknown reason. Her ship was never seen again and the slayer of the Night King either died from starvation, drowned or was murdered by her crew.

Over the years , her deed of killing the White Walker king would be written out of history by scholars, either for propganda reasons or simple disbelief that a mere young girl (most believed her being a faceless man to be another lie ) would slay the Night King.


	4. Chapter 4

The coming of Spring did not herald good things for the South either as more and more people were becoming dissatisfied with Brandon Stark's rule.

With the Reach divided and the Crownlands devastated there was no food to feed the thousands of starving common folk as famine and disease began to spread in the city. All of this was proclaimed as the Seven's punishment of the six kingdoms for letting a creature of dark magic rule over them by many septons not just in King's landing but in every other kingdom sans the Iron Isles (except in the crownlands , these septons were allowed to preach freely many lords seeing them as useful tools against the regime )

The only reason rebellion didn't erupt in the capital was because of a series of unfortunate accidents that befell those who spoke against King Brandon . At first confined to the city itself but then these "accidents " happened in increasing frequencies across the land and weirdly only ever seemed to befell lord's who openly or secretly opposed Brandon Stark. This made things quiet down for a year or so as more lords began to fear for their lives .

Most notably was Queen Yara's fleet coming under assault by dozens of Krakens who tore down the queen's ships and many others. Yara herself miraculously survived but ended her campaign soon afterwards.

Even the civil war of the Reach stopped as lords who were too successful in battle tended to meet untimely ends. Though for a brief moment it seemed that the new regime might yet stabilise. But Alas this was merely the calm before the storm as these deaths only confirmed in the eyes of many that Brandon Stark was Brynden Rivers born again and they would plot yet again though this time more carefully.

As for the king Brandon himself , he is reported to have been not concerned about his subjects at all , being more interested in news of the dragon Drogon who disappeared with his mother's corpse. Perhaps if there had been weirwoods in Volantis he would have known that the dragon arrived there not a week after Danyeres' death . And he still carried the seemingly unrotted body with him.


	5. Chapter 5

After the destruction of its fleet and army in the battle of Meeren volantis was in a dure situation . Surrounded by cities that would love nothing more than take advantage of its weaknesses (mostly bravos, lys and tyrosh ) and suffering from eternal strife as the salves inspired by danyeres's creed and the red priesthood began an uprising that was bloody as the dragon queen's own sack of astapor if not more so.

Amid it all arrived the last of the dragons , Drogon the on who who resembled the black dread of the conquerer He arrived at the red temple with the body of its "mother" in its claws , surprisingly in lifelike condition and unblemished despite the likely days long journey .

It's unknown how the dragon knew to come to the red temple and even the temple of R'hllor to this day denies having anything to do with it . But at the time it was seen as a holy sign and the body of the Queen was taken in by the senior priesthood to the heart of the temple for a reason that wouldn't be apparent till later.

Meanwhile the volantini civil war grew ever more brutal, though the Old blood nobles had elite sellsword companies at their back, the slaves outnumbered them greatly and in many cases could simply afford to drown them in numbers. ThHere was no help coming from the other cities who were busy dealing with their own problems with slave rebellions .

Things only got worse when the red priests emerged from the temple at last with the resurrected Danyeres Targaryan at their head

The Queen seemed utterly unconcerned with just be8g resurrected and immediately took control of the Slave uprising (she still enjoyed a saintly reputation among the essosi slaves despite Despite the best attempts of the slaving elite and westersoi nobility to make her into an evil blood thirsty witch queen )

With the help of a giant fire breathing lizard there was no question of who would win the civil war as the old blood , mowing full well the power of such creatures and what happened to their counterparts inslaver's bay , opted to simply surrender lest they die by dragon fire. The last Targaryen was suprisingly merciful this time, perhaps learning from her previous mistakes , she allowed the old blood nobility save passage outside of the city in exchange for most of their wealth and to be given any orphans among their number (being infertile the queen knew she had to have a heir somehow ).

The queen's mew tempartment was suprising to all who previously knew her (including the unsullied general greyworm whose ship happened to be docking in Volantis when this all happened and quickly rallied the remaining unsullied to join their returned monarch) , eben more shocking when the queen declared that her place was her in Essos and that she will make no more attempts to gain control of Westeros ( not that it stopped the iron hthrone from sending assassins and supporting upprisimgs and incursions aganist her ).

And indeed she would never return to the sunset kingdoms at all and it would take two generations before the Targaryen empire again attempted a conquest of the lands in the west. Instead the dragon queen focused her efforts on rebuilding Volantis, and re-affirming her authority on the three cities of Slaver's bay (which remained in the hands of freedmen despite many resurgences of the Sons of the Harpy) .

Next was the Dothraki sea which after being depopulated by the queen's previous invasion and subsequent migration to Westeros was an easy target with the city of vaes Dothrak falling without a fight (for there were hardly any fighters left)

Finally she would conquer the disputed lands and reduced the three sisters to vassalhod , being allowed to run their own affairs but only with the sufferance of the empire (and after freeing the slaves of course, not even being allowed "indentured servants" like pentos on the pain of dragonfire).

What followed was an era of unprecedented peace in western Essos as the massive Targaryen realm began to forge itself into a proper empire. Queen Danyeres' would surround herself with effective councillors and oversaw a prosperous reign until she finally died thirty years later .

The stark difference in character between the woman who destroyed King's landing and the wise pragmatic empress of a new Essos was not unnoticed and many believe that the queen's lapse into madness was in fact due to foul sorcery by Brandon Stark to rid himself of her and Jon Snow so that he would be king.

Indeed his later actions would suggest this was true


End file.
